daveinva
New member
Okay, "nightmare" is perhaps too strong a word, but sheesh, they weren't kidding about the cable slack, or lack thereof, were they?
I had a window yesterday afternoon and evening of nice weather (read: not insanely hot and humid) to take apart the Spyder in my driveway and install my new Easy Risers from ESI.
First, the good: :thumbup:
-- The instructions are 95% good enough
-- The quality of the risers (I got the black ones) is first-rate
-- Before I bought the risers, I was most afraid of cutting the bars. That actually went perfectly fine; I bought a ratchet-type bar cutter from Home Depot and that did the trick; actually, it did the trick QUITE well, as the style of cutting was so smooth it didn't need any filing to clean up afterwards. (Piece of advice-- you'll need a pair of pliers to twist the screw on the bar cutter every few rotations in order to keep the blade against the handlebar).
-- It all looks great now that it's (mostly) on!
Now, the bad: :gaah:
-- I don't know what glue BRP is using, but getting the grip off the clutch side was kind of a nightmare, even with windex and a screwdriver. Went on a lot easier with some Gorilla Glue.
-- Per the instructions, I took out that rubber Y-cowl out from under the handlebars. Good luck getting it back on again, I ran out of daylight before I could finagle it last night.
-- After cutting the bars, I needed to use a rubber mallet and WD-40 to pound the risers onto the cut bar ends, even fully unscrewed they don't just slip on. (That's good news for staying tight, however!)
-- Worst of all... the cable slack, or lack thereof.
The clutch cables had one twist-tie, visible right under the handlebars, that was it (i.e., there wasn't another tie underneath the panels). The throttle cables had one clip, no twist-ties.
To free up throttle cable, I had to put the cables above the metal hook on the left underside of the handlebar. I didn't seem to have any trouble on that side.
The clutch cable, however, was more frustrating. I had to take off the frunk release cable (five seconds, it just snaps in and out) to free those cables.
But... that was it. There's no hidden slack where all those cables go under that metal mount underneath the dash. To be honest, I don't see how I got any real slack at all out of the cables beyond what was already there before I ever took a panel off.
As for the risers, they fit, barely. I put them on in the recommended position for an SE5, but I could only get so much rise out of them before the cables went taut. Be aware, at least using my Spyder as an example, you will NOT get full range of vertical motion on the Easy Risers.
That said, I still managed to find comfortable position for me, then used a torque screwdriver (another $50 via Amazon) to tighten the bolts.
Unfortunately, this was about the time I ran out of daylight to finish putting the bike back together, so I just stowed the tools and threw the cover over everything to finish it off tonight.
I have lock-to-lock range of handlebar motion, but it's very tight at full lock. Throttle works fine at all stages. I used the original grip end caps to cover the now-cut stock bar holes, but I'm guessing something was lost in the translation as the screws don't do anything (I seem to recall reading around here there may have been a part I needed to mind when I first took them off the bars... oh well, guess I lost those :gaah
.
Anyway, I hope to have everything together tonight and take it out for a test ride. My greatest fear is that in tugging on the cables to find slack I may have disconnected or outright ripped wires. Guess I'll find that out in a hurry.
Bottom line verdict: installation wasn't terribly time consuming (I spent about 3 hours, but really only about 2 hours of that was working; if I had a decent garage rather than a driveway to work in, I'd probably be able to do this in 90 minutes). Still, those little things mentioned above got very frustrating.
The biggest problem by far was the lack of cable slack; I think at 4.5 inches, the Easy Risers are really running it close to the edge with the available slack; if I had to do it over again, I'd probably go with a 4 inch solution (or 3 inch, if someone had those).
I'll give an update after I ride...
I had a window yesterday afternoon and evening of nice weather (read: not insanely hot and humid) to take apart the Spyder in my driveway and install my new Easy Risers from ESI.
First, the good: :thumbup:
-- The instructions are 95% good enough
-- The quality of the risers (I got the black ones) is first-rate
-- Before I bought the risers, I was most afraid of cutting the bars. That actually went perfectly fine; I bought a ratchet-type bar cutter from Home Depot and that did the trick; actually, it did the trick QUITE well, as the style of cutting was so smooth it didn't need any filing to clean up afterwards. (Piece of advice-- you'll need a pair of pliers to twist the screw on the bar cutter every few rotations in order to keep the blade against the handlebar).
-- It all looks great now that it's (mostly) on!
Now, the bad: :gaah:
-- I don't know what glue BRP is using, but getting the grip off the clutch side was kind of a nightmare, even with windex and a screwdriver. Went on a lot easier with some Gorilla Glue.
-- Per the instructions, I took out that rubber Y-cowl out from under the handlebars. Good luck getting it back on again, I ran out of daylight before I could finagle it last night.
-- After cutting the bars, I needed to use a rubber mallet and WD-40 to pound the risers onto the cut bar ends, even fully unscrewed they don't just slip on. (That's good news for staying tight, however!)
-- Worst of all... the cable slack, or lack thereof.
The clutch cables had one twist-tie, visible right under the handlebars, that was it (i.e., there wasn't another tie underneath the panels). The throttle cables had one clip, no twist-ties.
To free up throttle cable, I had to put the cables above the metal hook on the left underside of the handlebar. I didn't seem to have any trouble on that side.
The clutch cable, however, was more frustrating. I had to take off the frunk release cable (five seconds, it just snaps in and out) to free those cables.
But... that was it. There's no hidden slack where all those cables go under that metal mount underneath the dash. To be honest, I don't see how I got any real slack at all out of the cables beyond what was already there before I ever took a panel off.
As for the risers, they fit, barely. I put them on in the recommended position for an SE5, but I could only get so much rise out of them before the cables went taut. Be aware, at least using my Spyder as an example, you will NOT get full range of vertical motion on the Easy Risers.
That said, I still managed to find comfortable position for me, then used a torque screwdriver (another $50 via Amazon) to tighten the bolts.
Unfortunately, this was about the time I ran out of daylight to finish putting the bike back together, so I just stowed the tools and threw the cover over everything to finish it off tonight.
I have lock-to-lock range of handlebar motion, but it's very tight at full lock. Throttle works fine at all stages. I used the original grip end caps to cover the now-cut stock bar holes, but I'm guessing something was lost in the translation as the screws don't do anything (I seem to recall reading around here there may have been a part I needed to mind when I first took them off the bars... oh well, guess I lost those :gaah
.Anyway, I hope to have everything together tonight and take it out for a test ride. My greatest fear is that in tugging on the cables to find slack I may have disconnected or outright ripped wires. Guess I'll find that out in a hurry.
Bottom line verdict: installation wasn't terribly time consuming (I spent about 3 hours, but really only about 2 hours of that was working; if I had a decent garage rather than a driveway to work in, I'd probably be able to do this in 90 minutes). Still, those little things mentioned above got very frustrating.
The biggest problem by far was the lack of cable slack; I think at 4.5 inches, the Easy Risers are really running it close to the edge with the available slack; if I had to do it over again, I'd probably go with a 4 inch solution (or 3 inch, if someone had those).
I'll give an update after I ride...
Last edited:
pps:.
